


Flower, Dream, and Glow

by butterflydreaming (chrysalisdreams)



Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tangled (2010) Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-13 06:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15358617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalisdreams/pseuds/butterflydreaming
Summary: A dark sorcerer keeps a long-haired beauty in tower, hidden in a forest. One day, a handsome prince climbs in through the window.For Yue Reed Fest, Prompt #88, "Rapunzel"





	1. Moon Castle

 

In a forest of oak and elm, hidden by boulders and dense ivy, was a clearing with a little stream running through it. Beside the crystal clear stream that was still as cold as snow from the mountain peaks that fed it, stood a castle made of stone. In the tallest tower of that castle as white as winter’s moon, a tawny lion sprawled on the hearth of a large fireplace, sleeping while a sorcerer brushed out the hair of a fair young man.

The dancing light of the flames gave Kerberos’ fur a brassy gleam and made the lion’s great, white wings glitter like fire opal. Kerberos was a bright spot in a shadowed room, but a softer radiance illuminated the two figures further from the fire. Yue’s wings, the soft white of clouds, reflected the gleaming length of Yue’s platinum hair. Standing behind Yue seated, Clow passed a flat brush against the river of pale strands. Yue’s hair glowed with magic as Clow spoke and brushed it out.

His customary black robes hid his shape in the darkness, as obscure as a lost memory. His voice was the murmur of a bedtime story. “This is the story of the day I died,” he began. “Ah, but don't worry.” He leaned forward, his body close to touching Yue’s. “It's actually a happy story, and not really about me.”

Yue turned his head to protest over his shoulder at Clow. Before Yue could say anything, Clow set his finger against Yue’s lips. Then he dipped his head and pressed a small kiss against Yue’s welcoming  mouth. He straightened up and took a step back. Clow began to brush the lower part of Yue's hair.

It was an unearthly white that radiated moonglow in resonance with Clow's voice. Yue's hair was magically long, long enough that Clow used it to climb down and up the great height of the tall tower that he, Yue, and Kerberos called home.

Clow continued. “It's a story about a girl named Sakura, and it begins,” he looped up Yue's hair and further stepped back, “with a drop of the sun.”

“Who sleeps constantly. Unless he's eating,” Yue commented.

Perfectly timed, the sound of Kerberos snoring stopped. “Shrimp dumpling…” the lion muttered in his sleep. Yue and Clow both turned to look at the Guardian Beast of the Clow Book. He rolled over onto his back and pawed at something in his dream. “...Old magician… kind of important…” Kerberos chuckled but didn't wake.

“I don't want to hear this story,” said Yue. “Please. Make it a different one.”

“No?” Clow asked. “Very well.” He agreed easily. He extended his hand toward Yue, beckoning. It was all the invitation Yue needed. Clow caught Yue in his embrace as Yue rushed to be with Clow.

Yue was small, slight, in the circle of Clow's arms. The slippery silk of Yue's white and blue clothes whispered against Clow's heavier, layered robes as Yue pressed his cheek against Clow’s chest. Clow stroked his hair, making Yue whimper with wanting. He burrowed his fingers into Clow's robes, seeking the warmth of Clow's skin.

The feeling of Clow's kiss on his forehead inspired Yue to tip his face up. He raised himself on tip toes, and he pulled himself up with arms around Clow's neck to nuzzle him with a kiss against his pulse. Dragging his lips further upward, he reached the hollow behind Clow’s ear.

Clow turned his head catch Yue’s wandering lips with his own warm lips. It was a kiss that Clow eased out of too soon; he slowly, regretfully, pushed Yue away. “I have to leave you,” he said. He let go and walked past Yue, though as he did, his hand caressed along Yue's body, fingers traveling from the strands of Yue's hair, touching shoulder and arm, finishing with a playful tug on Yue's locks. “I will need you to help,” he added, and he winked. “You have an important role to perform.”

“I want to go with you!” Yue followed Clow to the tower window.

“You must not,” Clow said.

“But I want to… I want to know about the lights in the sky!” Yue raised his hand and gestured at the world beyond the window frame. Outside, the night was total, an indigo velvet, revealing nothing. “Sometimes, there are lights in the sky.” His gaze searched the darkness.

When he turned back around, Clow held his magic staff in hand. He tipped it, and the room filled with spots of soft light, hundreds of floating, tiny orbs. Yue’s hair shimmered with an answering light. “You must mean The Glow,” Clow said.

“No…” Yue responded, but his denial was full of uncertainty. He  _ had _ scene The Glow, filling the night between tall trees, reflecting on a long pond, somewhere, once. He shook his head, turning away from the memory of where, and when.

Clow put his hands on Yue’s shoulders. “That's enough, now,” he said. “You're not leaving this tower. You're safe here.” His tone, still gentle, nevertheless indicated that he would hear no argument. “Don't make me be the bad guy.”

Clow stepped out, the spell that allowed him to fly  already cast onto his staff. Soon Clow was gone; he had vanished into an unfathomable darkness. Yue looked into the night but could not find him.

Yue wandered around the tower, looking for something to do with his time. On a shelf was the familiar garnet and gold binding of Clow's book. Beside it was the thick tome Yue and Kerberos had been forbidden to touch. It smelled musty, as if it had held water for years. Around him, the walls bore a mural filled with the images of playful sprites and other figures. Yue picked up a dry brush. He considered the walls, so full of smiling faces. Even the ones that hid in hooded cloaks or covered their eyes smiled their own secretive smiles.

Kerberos’ rumbling voice, still lazy with sleep, startled Yue when it echoed in the room. The winged lion was always loud, thunderous now in his full size, but impossible to ignore even in his smaller form. “She hasn't bloomed yet,” he said.

Yue looked up at the image in front of him: a woman in pink, twirling in a circle. Clow was to have added a storm of blossoms that she would be spreading all around. Yue wondered if it would ever be done. “Soon,” he sighed at Kerberos.

“When is soon?” Kerberos asked.

Yue twisted and stared at him. “Why does that sound familiar? Have we had this exchange before?”

“I don't remember it if we did.”

“It's almost…” Yue put down the paintbrush. He picked it up again, but instead of painting in the missing flowers, he found himself compelled to move aside a wall hanging and make his own painted scene in the last blank wall space, a spot above the fireplace. He wiped away enough soot staining to make it a night sky, daubing with paint to make a winding ribbon of twinkling lights. His unknown lights in the sky took shape as a river or a path.

When he was done, he opened his wings and flew up to a beam. He sat with legs crossed and studied the image he had made. Kerberos, nosey as always, changed to his smaller size and flew up to be beside Yue.

Together, they sat. Kerberos fell asleep. He had curled up in Yue's lap, and while Yue wouldn't admit to how cute Kerberos was in his small form, Yue stayed sitting on the beam so that Kerberos wouldn't be disturbed.

An ominous, scraping sound turned Yue's attention to the tower’s large window. Yue thought at first that Clow was returning and was about to call out to his master when he saw a strange man's hand grasp the lower edge of the window. An unknown face soon followed, as the man finished pulling himself up, stabbing into the mortar with arrows until he could climb through the window.

Shocked, Yue studied the young man. A brunette with an athletic physique, he was tall and lean. When he looked up slightly to take in his surroundings, Yue noted his brown eyes, the sun-kissed, peachy tan of his skin. He ran a hand through his hair to straighten it after the exertion of scaling the tower. He stepped deeper into the room. His handsome face took on a wary expression. Attention on the room doorways and the stairs leading to them, he had no idea that Yue was sitting on the beam over his head.

“Anyone here?” Since there was no response after he waited several minutes, he plopped down in a  nearby chair and shrugged off a load of tension. He puffed out a heavy exhalation, then took the satchel he held off his shoulder and opened it. Reflected light spangled on his face and around the room from the shiny thing within the shoulder bag.

Kerberos snorted and began to snore. The man below looked up in surprise. Yue had no choice but to act. Using his long hair like a whip, he snapped a loop around the seated man, holding him to the chair before he could get up. “Hair…?” the man exclaimed.

Kerberos fluttered around after being jolted awake until he sleepily settled onto the man’s shoulder. Paw against his own chin, he peered at the man’s face. He then poked at the man’s face with the paw. “Suspicious character,” Kerberos declared. “He’s already seen too much.”

“It talks…!”

Too late, Kerberos covered his mouth. Then he hastily grasped some of Yue’s hair and wound it around the man’s head as a blindfold. Kerberos stuffed a double pawful of hair into the man’s sputtering mouth as a gag and kept wrapping until the man’s whole face was covered in shining white hair.

There was enough slack in Yue’s hair to allow him to pace a few feet away from his captive, and he did, trying to get his mind around what he had just done. Kerberos left the captive’s shoulder and alighted onto Yue’s.

“What do we do now?” Yue asked in a tense whisper. 

“Toss him out the window?”

“No!”

“Hmmm.” Kerberos wrinkled his forehead and pondered. “What do we do…? What do we do?” He paced along Yue’s shoulders, repeating himself, until Yue became annoyed and shrugged him off. Affronted, Kerberos flew back toward the man and shot a tiny jet of fire breath at his head, only missing singeing the ear sticking out between bands of hair because the man ducked to the side.

“My hair!” Yue gasped. He removed the mummy wrapping from the captive’s face.

He wasn’t grateful for the unwrapping. “Look, uh…  _ Moonbeam _ ,” the man said after sputtering out the hair stuffed into his mouth, “I wasn’t trying to disturb your secret hideout.”

“Who are you?” interrogated Yue.

“Just untie me from your…” his countenance turned concerned as he observed hgis bindings, “copious hair, and I’ll go.”

“Yue’s voice hardened.”Who  _ are _ you?” He repeated. “How did you find me? Who sent you?”

The man responded, “No one sent me! I saw this tower, and it looked like a hiding place. It looked safe. No fickle shrine maidens.” His words only alarmed Yue further. He tried again. “I think we got off to a wrong start. Hi,” he said with a sassy grin, “I’m Touya. Touya Kinomoto. He seemed to expect a response to his grin other than Yue’s unaffected stare. After a silent minute ticked by, Touya’s smile evaporated. “Damn. That usually works,” he muttered under his breath.

Yue turned away again, thinking furiously about what to do next. Kerberos flew up beside him and said, “Ya know, this guy probably knows about those lights you wanted to see. He’s from out there, after all.”

“But can we trust him?” Yue wondered.

“If you wanna leave this place, you’re gonna have to learn to trust,” Kerberos said.

“I’ll leave when Clow says it’s time,” Yue answered.

“You can’t find out about the lights if you do that,” the little winged lion said.

Frowning, Yue turned back to Touya. “Tell me what you know about these lights in the sky,” he ordered. He indicated the fresh painting on the wall.

“Are those, ah, constellations?” Touya offered, craning his neck. He hopped the chair around so he wouldn’t have to twist much. “This would be easier if you untied me,” he hinted. He didn’t get a positive response. “That looks like the Milky Way,” he continued, “and Aquila and Lyra.”

At Yue’s blank, concerned expression, Touya said, “The constellations with Altair and Vega.” When Yue still said nothing, Touya explained further. “The stars, Altair and Vega. The ones that are close to each other across the Milky way, in the sky this month.”

“Stars,” Yue repeated. He covered for his ignorance. “Hmph. Yes. Stars.” Something about that frightened him.

Touya’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked, more a comment to himself than a question for Yue.

Yue wasn’t listening. “I’ve decided…” he began. He stopped, unsure of what he had been about to say.

Kerberos finished for him. “You’re going to show Yue the way,” he pronounced.

“What?” Yue and Touya responded in unison.

Touya recovered first. “Great. So I’m free to go.” He wriggled at his bindings. He cleared his throat to draw attention.

“I’m not leaving,” Yue stated.

“Fine by me. You stay. I’ll leave. We both get what we want. So could you untie me now?” Touya looked pointedly at the hair encircling his wrists and ankles. “Or are you into this sort of thing?” he quipped.

Immediately, Yue began pulling his hair off Touya. “Not with you,” he said in a  tight voice. Heat bloomed in his face and neck; he turned his head so that the long fringe of his hair would obscure his blushing face.

As soon as he was liberated, Touya picked up his satchel and headed toward the window egress.

“Clow left us,” Kerberos said. “He’s not coming back.”

“Wait.” Yue wanted to stay where he was and wait for Clow. At the same time, he found himself wanting to follow Touya, to go outside because hadn’t Clow gone out of the place they had together? And what about the stars? What was drawing him to see the stars?

Touya climbed out of the window. He used his arrows again, making his way painstakingly down the white stone. Yue went to the window. He stood on the sill and looked down.

Below was a green grass lawn, studded with snowbell flowers that were being tinted pink by the dawning sky. Night was giving way to the light of new morning. He looked out at a world that seemed too large, too empty in spite of a landscape of trees, the smoke of settlements giving evidence that it was a world full of people, too.

“Should I?”

Kerberos nudged encouragement.

“No!” Even as he stepped off, he resisted his choice. But still his wings opened to catch the air, feathers rippling with the breeze. When Yue approached the ground, he paused, hovering just above the grassy surface. He stretched out a toe, nearly touched the ground, then pulled back.

Kerberos, expanding into full size as he flew down, barrelled into Yue’s back. They both went tumbling across the greenery. Kerberos was airborne again in an instant. Yue nearly went face-first into the pond. Strands of his hair fell into the water. When the ripples cleared, he saw his reflection. His sharp bone structure accented flawless porcelain skin, and long eyelashes veiling jewel-bright irises in a rare color, in a face no one could mistake for human.

Kerberos, though as much an unnatural being as Yue was, cavorted with the abandon of a child. “Wahoo!” he bellowed. He tore up the grass running, and flew around the tree trunks until he made himself dizzy. He rolled down a grassy slope and lay, laughing, at the bottom.  

“Best day ever,” Kerberos pronounced.

Yue picked himself up, found Touya, and glided to him. Touya started off toward the woods without a second look at Yue or Kerberos. Yue followed him. Touya made a show of ignoring him. It didn’t last long.

“So what’s your story, Snowflake?” Touya finally asked when they had been walking under the shadow of branches for some time.

“That is not my name,” Yue corrected.

“Isn’t it?” Touya smirked.

A rustling in the undergrowth derailed Yue’s retort. “Kerberos?” He looked around, but Kerberos was nowhere to be seen. A strong gust of wind shook the leaves on the branches above.

Touya looked around, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “That yellow furball is up to something,” he said. His gaze settled on Yue, assessing him.

The bushes rustled again. A flurry of movement burst out from the leaves. Yue leapt into the air, ready to create gem darts or his bow. Touya caught the creature as it sprang, and for a moment he held an armful of bunny before the rabbit bounded away.

Touya looked at Yue, who was still hovering in readiness, then looked down the path where the rabbit had fled. He grinned. He started on the trail again. “You really are alike,” he said.

“We’re nothing alike,” Yue answered, but it sounded like a protest he had wanted to make before, some other time, when an important decision had to be made. When he had needed something from Touya. “How much further until the path of stars?” Yue asked.

“It’s just ahead,” Touya answered.

}i{


	2. Stars

The day of traveling passed as quickly as a thought. Yue hardly noted it. It seemed that they were at the entrance of a kingdom in an instant, the distance from the tower gone in a blur. 

“Hey, it’s a festival!” Kerberos had changed back into his small form during their travels so he could ride on Yue. He zipped into the air as soon as he caught the scent of fair food. “It smells delicious! Time to eat!”

Yue hesitated at the gateway, but Kerberos zoomed ahead. Touya began to enter the plaza, too. “Wait --” Yue called after him.

“There’s something I have to do,” Touya answered, though he paused a moment before walking into the crowd. “I won’t be far.”

Yue found himself feeling suddenly alone, though he was surrounded by a crowd. The strangers bustled past, paying little attention to Yue. He was caught in the current. Having no other choice, he was drawn in. It was all overwhelming, a constant motion of color, compounded with mixing smells and sounds. 

A performer blocked his path. The veiled figure fanned out a handful of large playing cards. “Choose,” she said. Yue could not make out the features of her obscured face; he could only see a hint of long, red hair.

He tried to walk past her, but she blocked his path again. “Is this your card?” she asked, turning over each card, one after the other. They were tarot cards: The Magician, inverted. “Deceit,” she said. Next was The Lovers. She said nothing. Then she revealed The Tower, inverted. “Now this one,” she started, “you’re--” 

She was about to say more until her attention was drawn away by guards entering the plaza. Their sun emblazoned golden armor and red uniforms put them in colors oddly close to the gold and garnet scheme of Clow’s emblem. The woman hurried away. For a moment, Yue wondered if she were unwelcome in the the kingdom and had been afraid to be seen.

The guards, spotting him, started in his direction. He did not want to find out why. He let himself be carried away by the moving crowd. When he had the opportunity, he stepped aside under a canopy. His eyes adjusted from the sunlight to the more comfortable, dim interior. “Touya!” he exclaimed. There the other young man was, standing behind a small table. “You’re here?”

“I’m working,” he explained. He was wearing a bear costume, but holding the head under his arm.

The girl standing opposite Touya looked up from the puzzle of matchsticks on the table surface. Her eyes went wide, then she looked away, her cheeks turning bashfully pink. She peeked up at him again and smiled. Her cuteness was charming for its sincerity. She was no more than twelve years old, he guessed, with auburn tinted hair and green eyes. In a white dress with red trim at the collar and puffed sleeves, she exhibited the grace and beauty of a princess, but her posture was still that of a child. 

Touya said to her, “I can see the monster smoke coming out of your ears. Maybe you should have studied harder.”

“I’m not giving up,  _ Oniichan _ !” All bashfulness disappeared as the girl directed her ire at Touya.

“Then hurry up and solve it,” Touya taunted.

Yue looked at the matchsticks on the table. Ten had been laid out to outline a five-pointed star. “What is the puzzle?” Yue asked, aware that there must be significance to the shape. For the moment, he put aside the other questions clouding his mind.

“Um,” the girl began to explain, “I have to change the original into my own star.”

Yue watched himself rearrange the sticks. He stood beside the girl and made the outline into the written character for “star.” The girl held out a folded booklet, and Touya stamped a mark onto it. Hands clasped together, the girl turned to Yue with an expression of hope.

“You’ll stay with me through the next challenge, too, won’t you?”

Touya said, “Don’t mind her. That’s my little sister.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Yue heard himself saying. In the time that Yue had looked from the girl and back to Touya, Touya’s costume had changed. He was now wearing a dress patched in rags, and wore a kerchief on his head.

“Cinderella,” Yue said. He heard laughter in his voice.

“Sakura is playing the prince,” Touya replied.

“I’m a  _ princess, _ ” Sakura protested, grabbing her brother’s arm. The costume wings on her back flapped  with her emphatic flounce.

Yue heard a sound like a gong, or like a temple bell. Touya opened the satchel he was still carrying. He reached in, then handed a silver crown to Yue. He looked at the silver crown. It was paper, made to look like a metal can with the top and bottom removed. The label said, “SABA.” A tin of mackerel.

Sakura also reached into the bag. She drew out a wand, with a star at its end. It was a prop fairy wand. Made of cardboard, glue, and silver glitter, it was not the sealing wand.Still, she held it across both hands as if offering it toward him.

Feeling weak, Yue dropped to his knees, head bowed. “Is this the judgement?” he asked aloud, to no one in particular. “Where am I?”

}i{ 

He was in a small boat, on a lake. The lake was a perfect mirror of the night sky. The sky was full of stars, so many stars, and a thick river of celestial glitter wound through it. The endless twinkling backdrop was broken by the silhouette of Princess Sakura before him. She was calmly sitting across him in the boat, with her hands resting in her lap.

Yue looked at his reflection in the water. He was still wearing the can-of-mackerel crown. The face in reflection was Yukito. “I’m in a dream,” Yue said.

“Yes,” the girl answered. She was still in white, but her wings were gone. Gold embellishments had replaced red trim.

“The judgement was a long time ago.”

“You can wake up now, if you like,” Sakura answered. “Or you can let the dream play out, if you want to.”

“I’m where I’m meant to be,” Yue answered.

His eyes followed the glittering starlight, discerning the horizon when he could make out the dock, and a tall, robed figure standing there. All at once, the boat was beside the dock, moored, and the tall person was reaching down to help Princess Sakura out of the boat. She accepted his help and first stepped up onto the dock, then into a hug.

Yue stepped out of the boat, his wings carrying him up to face Clow. “You’re here,” Yue said. Knowing now that it was a dream, he didn’t feel the dread that had confused him. It was only a dream, but still, like this, he could meet the one he had loved most. Across a river of stars, just for a brief while, he could see Clow again.

}i{


End file.
